A Glimpse Into My Journal

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So you all know how I love journals. I have many of them. One of my favorites is my digital journal, which I keep as a Keynote file (it’s like PowerPoint, but for Macs). It’s simple to use, and I just drag and drop my favorite images and thoughts from the web right onto each page. Because it’s not published, I don’t have to worry about linking and crediting so much – it’s just for my own eyes.

Except! I thought some of you image lovers might be interested in something like this, so I wanted to share how I do it.

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I keep a folder on my desktop titled “For Journal.” Every time I find an image, quote, product, or anything on the web that I love, for any reason at all (it’s digital! you can keep EVERYTHING!), I either drag it to my journal folder or do a screen grab of the section.

Then, every so often, when I feel like journaling, I open my Keynote file, add a new page, and drop in the images I’ve saved, in whatever size/order/format I like. And whenever I want to view it, I just hit Play and watch all my mesmerizing images go by, ready to inspire me and urge me to try new things.

I gather my images from EVERYWHERE – Tumblr, Pinterest, blogs, emails, websites, texts, books, etc. This is the one place I can keep every type of inspiration and not worry about who will see it, who will judge it, who will censor it. It’s quite lovely.

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Do any of you journal this way? Do you keep images and ideas somewhere? Would you mind sharing? I do love journals.

2 responses to “A Glimpse Into My Journal”

  1. I love journals too, but I always feel overwhelmed by them because I feel like I want a consistent format, and then I always stray from that and end up disappointed. My inspirations/ideas are pretty much just cataloged all over the place now…I’ve got some fashion/sewing inspiration saved to Pinterest, but then I tend to save recipes and actual sewing tutorials on Pocket. And then I have so many books filled with cooking ideas (just general stuff like “fish poached in butter, with corn/jalapeno/queso fresco”), and then even more folders with torn-out recipes from magazines. And then I used to put post-it tabs on the physical pages of all the cookbook recipes I wanted to try. And I also started keeping a food journal of everything I ate, but then I found I was writing things more matter-of-fact than romantically (a la Nigel Slater), and I quit because it wasn’t that fun to reread. And then I started keeping a “one line a day” journal, but that only lasted for three months. And then I started keeping a “memory jar” instead to save special things that would have gone into a journal. And now, I’m pretty much doing nothing. 🙂 So I think I’d rather stare at your gorgeous journals than do any of my own!

    Also, that quote in your top right image is fantastic! Yes to that!

  2. Sounds like we have the SAME problem! I want a place for digital stuff, paper ephemera, thoughts, recipes… but all in one spot, without the hassle of scanning and printing and… (sigh) 🙂

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